How many of us wear THESE anymore?

Thanks to Angie for contributing this piece called "Grandma's Apron." Author unknown. It's a bit sentimental:

I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was evenused for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, andsometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how muchfurniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, andthe men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that'old-time apron' that served so many purposes. Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about Grandma'saprons.

REMEMBER: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs was on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron--except love.

Living on Wisteria Lane

This weekend, Miss Becky Home Ecky is actually living up to her name. Plans call for a neighborhood garage sale, lemonade stand and block party. Cooking is involved. (Chocolate Toffee Oatmeal cookies for the lemonade stand; chicken wings for the block party). Plus there's a soccer game tomorrow morning; you'll find me standing on the sidelines with a mug of coffee like all the other parents.

You long for Wisteria Lane; then when you get it, all you want is to rebel.

I did tell the neighbors that we wanted to host a Swingtown party and have everyone come in 70s garb. However given that we are the new people on the block, I think that could be misconstrued!

I've been in a fallow period, writing-wise, for a few years now. Three years ago, when my oldest son was 2 1/2, I began to write weekly with a teacher, and that developed into a huge project to renovate a novel I had tried to write over a decade. It was maybe not the easiest way to go about writing a novel, as I was taking a story that was remotely based on episodes from my life (hello autobiographical first novel - isn't that classic?) and built a story around it. In retrospect it seems easier to have a story in place first. But, Miss Becky Home Ecky NEVER does anything the easy way. Why, when you can suffer for your art instead?? But I digress. I went through a hugely creative period and was exquisitely happy writing that novel. Daily, as I wrote, I would get that beautiful soaring feeling that comes when you are in the zone. I took that as a sign that this was what I was meant to do. I mean, can Julia Cameron and her gazillion-selling books about The Writer's Way be wrong about that?

I still love that book. I have put it out into the world, and it may get published or it may not, but it brought me huge amounts of happiness.

Then, I got pregnant with my second son, and if you've ever been pregnant at age 40 with a preschooler at home, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that I was TIRED. So making that second blessed baby and bringing him into the world and getting our family adjusted and renovating a house and moving was my gigantic creative undertaking of the next few years. To say that I am in a fallow period is actually quite unfair, as my husband and I have created this family, and now, a new home, in record time. It's fallow in terms of pages written -- but not in terms of life lived.

At age 40, I allowed myself to be a vessel for creativity, against a lot of odds. It wasn't the biblical Sarah in her 80s, but hey, I too had given up. Now I know that when the time is right I will be a vessel again - for a book, not a baby! - and I know it will come in its own time.